Bolton 2-0 Albion

By Andy Dengate
October 24 2005

Many people say The Baggies' approach to this game was far to negative, 4-5-1 and Horsfield lone striker it appeared to be. Ellington, Campbell and Wallwork all travelled, none of the three made the sixteen.

A lot of the travelling 2000 or so Albion fans werent happy with the negative formation Robson started with, after all Bolton aren't amazingly speical and we have just beaten Arsenal.

As soon as the game started Albion lacked up front, the midfield was none existent and West Brom really had nothing about them.

Bolton kept trying through balls down the flanks to make an opening, but Albion's back 5 dealt with this pretty well and stopped Bolton creating much, the only problem was we had nothing at all, when we won the ball it was "hoofed" down the field straight back to Bolton, as Horsfield didn't have an amazing game.

Kirkland had to pull off some good saves as Albion got deeper and deeper allowing the Wanderers too much time on the ball.

Albion did get their break in the 19th minute, West Brom got a penalty as Joe Kamara was brought down in the box, he decided to take it himself. He stepped up, bottom right hand corner, Albion fans went wild, 1-0? Nope, It had to be retaken as "Horsfield ran into the box before the ball was kicked". To be fair as Kamara went to retake the penalty Albion fans werent to convinced they were going to score, and they were right, Kamara skied the retake, the Bolton fans cheering.

West Brom kept the same 11 as they went into the second half. Just after half time things heated up after a few rash tackles, one being Greening, he went in two footed and was very lucky the Bolton player wasnt next to the ball, or The Baggies would of been playing the rest of the game with only ten men.

The Baggies' were lucky that Pedersen's shot hit off a Bolton player from 5 yards out, or they would of been 1-0 down. But it came soon after anyway, Nakata scored from a free-kick in which Kirkland was trying to tell Kamara to move the wall to the right, but he thought Kirkland was telling him to get out of the wall, so Nakata had a clear view of the back post, Bolton 1-0.

But Nolan sealed the points in the second minute of injury time as Albion backed off and allowed him to stroke a shot into the bottom hand corner.

Full Time: Bolton 2-0 West Brom

Match Rating: 3/10
Ref Rating: 2/10